A lot more than you’d think I suspect.
The real question is who has an AM radio these days. You can hardly buy them anywhere.
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Agree.
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Weird isn’t it considering 3MP are pushing that. I don’t recall if the former incarnation of Magic pushed the dab signal. MyMp did but that was more to do with the MTR experiment.
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Yeah I just don’t get why they wouldn’t cover all bases. How hard is it to include three little letters in a promo?
Every promo in the UK has the frequency, DAB, and online as options.
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Funnily enough, when Jon called his father, John (the father) said that he’d been listening to 3MP all weekend on his DAB+ radio but hadn’t heard the AM signal yet as he doesn’t have an AM radio in the house and hadn’t gone anywhere in the car.
For the older generation, they are not well catered for on FM and have spent most of their lives on the AM band. When it comes time to replace their radio, or they can’t get a good AM signal (which is more and more common in the cities these days, particularly indoors) they’ll happily spend a bit extra for digital to keep listening to what they know.
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Hopefully Jon had a daughter called Jo, who gave him a grandkid called J.
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lots, I reckon. Although as I’ve said in these parts before, I bought my mum a digital radio for her birthday one year and she used it for a while but now she’s gone back to the old AM/FM transistor radio she’d had for years
I grew up in the northern suburbs in the 1980s and listened to 3MP a lot before it became Easy Listening.
And now, out of curiosity, I’ve been listening to 1377 in the car, still around the northern suburbs. The only problem is when you get near tram lines the signal is more susceptible to dropping out, whereas other AM stations broadcasting from a closer range are a bit more resistant.
I do agree though that the playlist is a bit dated, like it was parachuted in from the days of Easy Listening 3MP in 1985, but I guess they’re going for the heritage market and an age group older than I am.
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3MP still suffering a lot of playout issues - sweepers firing off in the middle of songs. A voice track played twice too.
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Looks like Ace did not do enough testing to get all the bugs and glitches out
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Didn’t have much time to be fair. They’ve launched with a lot more than Magic has and a much smaller operation.
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You can do all the testing in the world and bugs will still appear. Sometimes the best test is just to go live. And as said above, they didn’t have much time
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An FM Translator for the North Western Suburbs would’ve been Ideal.
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Would the ACMA give a FM Translator License out to ACE Radio?
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Can’t imagine the likes of 3AW taking to that too kindly, there’s sure to be significant opposition to such a move. Besides there’s little free spectrum in the FM band for them to do it.
I’d think ACMA would be more inclined to encourage them to re-engineer their AM site to improve coverage to the west
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This is the way to go. They can’t fulfil coverage of the licence area at the moment. And they’ve been given permission to upgrade the AM transmitter site.
Coverage of greater Melbourne wasn’t as much of an issue for 3MP back in 1976. It was pretty good.
But like all AM stations, coverage has suffered due to the noise floor on the AM band rising dramatically over the past 30 or so years. Plus more people are living and working in buildings that act like Faraday cages.
Not so much of an issue for 3MP is the encroachment of housing and industrial parks on transmitter sites, reducing the amount of space for decent signal take-off. And the tendency to combine multiple AM stations onto one tower which doesn’t radiate properly for any of them. 3MP is lucky that it’s based in the swamp surrounding Dandenong Creek in Rowville.
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Well they have for 6iX in Perth and 4TAB in Brisbane but who knows.
ACMA doesn’t seem to have a plan for poor AM reception in capital cities other than DAB.
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Three of the Brisbane commercials were allowed to increase their power to at least 10kw. 4TAB has the highest maximum CMF of any commercial station in Australia. 3MP was allowed to increase their CMF towards Melbourne already - could they be allowed to increase to 10kw? - perhaps it could cause interference to NZ radio if much stronger.
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97.4?
Though yeah, couldn’t imagine FM translators would be approved until after they actually carry out the already okayed AM improvements.
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Are there plans to Re advertiese Western Melbournes community licence for another community group?
3MP’s earlier owners (Wesgo?) probably should have bit the bullet and moved 3MP over to 693 when they had the chance in the 1990s when they owned both 1377 and (3EE) 693. Instead they created a new station on 693 (Magic 693) which cannibalised 3MP’s audience and then Southern Cross came in and kept 693 as the stronger station/signal, and sold off 3MP.
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